I had a 'memory' post pop up on my FB newsfeed today.  It was a short sentence and a photo of the marina at Motueka where Mum and I had coffee when I was down visiting her.  I realised it would've been about 6 months before she sold the house and moved up to Wellington to be near us.

It sparked off a "Bad Dad Day" (BDD) for me.  Funny how sometimes such a small thing can set you off.  BDD's mean it's a day I'm going to cry at least once.  Dad's been gone over 6 years now and while the sharpness of the pain has dulled to an ache, it's never going to be OK.  I look out at my Garden and hear my Dad telling me 'You need to do this, and you need to do that'.  Saying that, I'd probably never have bothered to start the journey of establishing a garden if it wasn't for him.

So, some days I look out at my yard and I think of Dad, and it's enough to know that I'm doing something he loved to do, even to the point of pruning way too brutally (learnt not to do that since!).  It's enough that I have his old lawnmower and know that his hands touched that at one time.  Terribly nostalgic and sentimental, and possibly even dramatic, of me to say that.  But these are things I think about on BDD's.

Because when I'm having a BDD, all the flowers and trees and the souvenirs of lawnmowers and garden gloves etc....none of it's enough.  None of it's ever enough on a BDD.

So today, I had a good cry in the shower, thought I was done with that part, and then had another good cry while trying to get dressed.  And now I'm here, using my blog, my old friend, as a sounding board, because I feel the need, because writing helps to calm my thoughts and because I originally started this blog to help talk myself through things that often didn't make sense in my head.  Good times, bad times, all times.